ABNORMALCY BIAS

“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.” – Aldous Huxley – Brave New World Revisited

The political class set in motion the eventual obliteration of our economic system with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Placing the fate of the American people in the hands of a powerful cabal of unaccountable greedy wealthy elitist bankers was destined to lead to poverty for the many, riches for the connected crony capitalists, debasement of the currency, endless war, and ultimately the decline and fall of an empire. Ernest Hemingway’s quote from The Sun Also Rises captures the path of our country perfectly:

“How did you go bankrupt?”
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

The 100 year downward spiral began gradually but has picked up steam in the last sixteen years, as the exponential growth model, built upon ever increasing levels of debt and an ever increasing supply of cheap oil, has proven to be unsustainable and unstable. Those in power are frantically using every tool at their disposal to convince Boobus Americanus they have everything under control and the system is operating normally. The psychotic central bankers, “bought and sold” political class, mega-corporation soulless chief executives and corporate controlled media use propaganda techniques, paid “experts”, talking head “personalities”, captured think tanks, and the willful ignorance of the majority to spin an increasingly dire economic descent as if we are recovering and getting back to normal. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There is nothing normal about what Ben Bernanke and the Federal government have done over the last five years and continue to do today. Truthfully, nothing has been normal since the mid-1990s when Alan Greenspan spoke the last truthful words of his lifetime:

“Clearly, sustained low inflation implies less uncertainty about the future, and lower risk premiums imply higher prices of stocks and other earning assets. We can see that in the inverse relationship exhibited by price/earnings ratios and the rate of inflation in the past. But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?”

The Greenspan led Federal Reserve created two epic bubbles in the space of six years which burst and have done irreparable harm to the net worth of the middle class. Rather than learn the lesson of how much damage to the lives of average Americans has been caused by creating cheap easy money out of thin air, our Ivy League self-proclaimed expert on the Great Depression, Ben Bernanke, has ramped up the cheap easy money machine to hyper-speed. There is nothing normal about the path this man has chosen. His strategy has revealed the true nature of the Federal Reserve and their purpose – to protect and enrich the financial elites that manipulate this country for their own purposes.

Despite the mistruths spoken by Bernanke and his cadre of banker coconspirators, he can never reverse what he has done. The country will not return to normalcy in our lifetimes. Bernanke is conducting a mad experiment and we are the rats in his maze. His only hope is to retire before it blows up in his face. Just as Greenspan inflated the housing bubble and exited stage left, Bernanke is inflating a debt bubble, stock bubble, bond bubble and attempting to re-inflate the housing bubble just in time for another Ivy League Keynesian academic, Janet Yellen, to step into the banker’s box. This genius thinks Bernanke has been too tight with monetary policy. It seems inflated egos are common among Ivy League economist central bankers who think they can pull levers and push buttons to control the economy. Results may vary.

The gradual slide towards our national bankruptcy of wealth, spirit, freedom, self-respect, morality, personal responsibility, and common sense began in 1913 with the secretive creation of the Federal Reserve and the imposition of a personal income tax. Pandora’s Box was opened in this fateful year and the horrors of currency debasement and ever increasing taxation were thrust upon the American people by a small but powerful cadre of unscrupulous financial elite and the corrupt politicians that do their bidding in Washington D.C. The powerful men who thrust these evils upon our country set in motion a chain of events and actions that will undoubtedly result in the fall of the great American Empire, just as previous empires have fallen due to the corruption of its leaders and depravity of its people. Creating a private central bank, controlled by the Wall Street cabal, and allowing the government to syphon the earnings of workers through increased taxation has allowed politicians the ability to spend, borrow, and print money at an ever increasing rate in order to get themselves re-elected and benefit the cronies, hucksters and bankers that pay the biggest bribes. None of this benefit the average American, who sees their purchasing power systematically inflated and taxed away. This is not capitalism and it is not a coincidence that war and inflation have been the hallmarks of the last century.

“A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking.” – Ron Paul

As you can see, the bankruptcy of our country and our culture began gradually, accelerated after Nixon closed the gold window in 1971, really picked up steam in 1980 when the debt happy Baby Boom generation came of age, and has “suddenly” reached maximum velocity as we approach the true fiscal cliff. There were many checkpoints along the way where fatefully bad choices were made. They include the New Deal, Cold War, Great Society, Morning in America, Dotcom New Paradigm, Housing Wealth Retirement Plan, Obamacare, and present belief that creating more debt will solve a problem created by too much debt. The Federal Reserve allowed interventionist politicians to fight two declared wars (World War I, World War II), fight five undeclared wars (Korea, Vietnam, Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq), conduct hundreds of military engagements around the globe, occupy foreign countries, begin a war on poverty that increased poverty, begin a war on drugs that increased the amount of available drugs, and finally start a war on terror that has increased the number of terrorists and pushed us closer to national bankruptcy. The terrorists have already won, as the explosion of stupidity and irrational fear has allowed those in power to acquire more power and dominion over our lives.

Abnormality Reigns

“We live surrounded by a systematic appeal to a dream world which all mature, scientific reality would reject. We, quite literally, advertise our commitment to immaturity, mendacity and profound gullibility. It is as the hallmark of the culture. And it is justified as being economically indispensable.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

When I critically scrutinize the economic, political, financial, and social landscape at this point in history, I come to the inescapable conclusion that our country and world are headed into the abyss. This is most certainly a minority viewpoint. The majority of people in this country are oblivious to the disaster that will arrive over the next decade. Some would attribute this willful ignorance to the normalcy bias that infects the psyches of millions of ostrich like iGadget distracted, Facebook addicted, government educated, financially illiterate, mass media manipulated zombies. Normalcy bias refers to a mental state people enter when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to inform the populace about the impending disaster. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster hasn’t occurred yet, then it will never occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with the disaster once it occurs. People tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.

The unsustainability of our economic system built upon assumptions of exponential growth, ever expanding debt, increasing consumer spending, unlimited supplies of cheap easy to access oil, impossible to honor entitlement promises, and a dash of mass delusion should be apparent to even the dullest of government public school educated drones inhabiting this country. I don’t attribute this willful ignorance to normalcy bias. I attribute it to abnormalcy bias. In a profoundly abnormal society, adjusting your thinking to fit in appears normal, but is just a symptom of the disease that has infected our culture. There is nothing normal about anything in our society today. If you were magically transported back to 1996 and described to someone the economic, political, financial and social landscape in 2013, they would have you committed to a mental institution and given shock therapy.

Even though we’ve been in a 100 year spiral downwards, things still appeared relatively normal in 1996 when Greenspan uttered his “Irrational Exuberance” faux pas that so upset his Wall Street puppet masters. The ruling class had not yet repealed Glass-Steagall (pre-requisite for pillaging the muppets), created the internet bubble, fashioned the greatest control fraud in world history (housing bubble unrecognized by Ben Bernanke), or taken advantage of mass hysteria over 9/11 to begin the never ending war on terror and expansion of the Orwellian state. The citizens, and I use that term loosely, of this country have allowed those in control of the government and media to convince them the situation confronting us is just a normal cyclical variation that will be alleviated by tweaking existing economic policies and trusting that Ben Bernanke will pull the right monetary levers to get us back on course. The stress inflicted on their brains in the last thirteen years of bubbles and wars has made the average person incapable of distinguishing between normality and abnormality. What they need is slap upside of their head. Is there anything normal about these facts?

The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet in 1996 consisted of $422 billion, of which 91% were Treasury securities. Today it consists of $3.25 trillion, of which only 56% are Treasury securities, and the rest is toxic home mortgages, toxic commercial mortgages, and whatever other crap the Wall Street banks have dumped on their books. Their balance sheet is leveraged 57 to 1 and Bernanke has promised his Wall Street bosses he will add another $750 billion before the year is out. Is there anything normal about a central bank adding twice as much debt to its balance sheet in less than twelve months than existed on its entire balance sheet in 1996?

The National Debt at the end of fiscal 1996 was $5.25 trillion. It increased by $250 billion that year. The GDP of the country was $7.8 trillion. Our national debt as a percentage of GDP was only 67% and our annual deficit was only 3% of GDP. At the time, the country was worried about these outrageous levels of debt. Today the National Debt stands at a towering $16.8 trillion. It has increased by a staggering $1.12 trillion in the last twelve months. The GDP of the country today is $15.7 trillion. Our national debt as a percentage GDP has soared to 107%. Our annual deficits now exceed 7% of GDP on a consistent basis. Our budgets are on automatic pilot, with the $20 trillion level to be breached by 2016. Is it a normal state of affairs when the GDP of your country rises by 100% over seventeen years, while your debt rises by 320%?

Total government spending (Federal, State, Local) in 1996 totaled $2.7 trillion, or 35% of GDP. Today total government spending is $6.3 trillion, or 40% of GDP. In 1979, before the belief in government became a religion, total government spending was only 31.5% of GDP (27% in 1965). Are you receiving twice the service from government than you received in 1996? Are you safer from terrorists due to the massive expansion of the police state? Are your kids getting a much better education than they did in 1996? Have the undeclared wars benefitted you in any way, other than tripling the price of gas? Are the higher wage taxes, real estate taxes, school taxes, sewer fees, utility fees, phone fees, gasoline taxes, permit fees, and myriad of other government charges worth it? Is it normal for government to account for almost half of our economy?

In 1996 personal consumption expenditures accounted for 67% of GDP, while private domestic investment accounted for 16% of GDP and we ran small trade deficits of 1% of GDP. Today, consumer spending accounts for 71% of GDP (despite the storyline about consumer retrenchment), while domestic investment has contracted to 13% of GDP and our trade deficits have surged to almost 4% of GDP. The Federal government has expanded their piece of the GDP pie by 130% since 1996, with the Department of War accounting for the bulk of the increase. Saving and capital investment is now penalized in this country. Is it normal for a country to borrow, consume and bleed itself to death?

Consumer credit outstanding totaled $1.2 trillion in 1996, or $4,500 per every man, woman and child in the country. Today, the austere balance is now $2.8 trillion, or $8,800 per every man, woman and child inhabiting our debt saturated paradise. The more than doubling of consumer debt would be acceptable if wages were rising at a similar rate. But that hasn’t been the case, as wages have only advanced from $3.6 trillion in 1996 to $7.0 trillion today. With even the massively understated CPI showing 50% inflation since 1996 and 23% more Americans in the working age population (45 million), real wages have advanced by 30%. Using a true measure of inflation, real wages have fallen. Total credit market debt in 1996 was $19 trillion, or 243% of GDP. Today total credit market debt sits at an all-time high of $56.2 trillion, or 358% of GDP. Is it normal for credit market debt to increase at three times the rate of GDP?

In 1996, personal income totaled $6.6 trillion, with wages accounting for 55% of the total, interest income on savings accounting for 12% and government entitlement transfers accounting for 14%. Today personal income totals $13.6 trillion, with wages accounting for 51% of the total, interest income on savings plunging to 7% due to Bernanke’s “Screw a Senior Zero Interest Policy”, and Big Brother entitlement transfers skyrocketing to 18%. In what Orwellian dystopian society is taking money from wage earners and redistributing it to non-wage earners considered personal income? Is it normal for a government to punish savers and makers in order to benefit the borrowers and takers?

Prior to the financial collapse and during the mid-1990s prudent risk-averse savers could get a 4% to 5% return on money market accounts. Since the Wall Street created worldwide financial collapse, Ben Bernanke, at the behest of these very same Wall Street banks, has reduced short term interest rates to 0%. The result has been to transfer $400 billion per year from the pockets of savers and senior citizens into the grubby hands of bankers that have destroyed our economy. The prudent are left earning .02% on their savings, while the profligate bankers can borrow for 0% and earn billions by re-depositing those funds at the Federal Reserve. In what bizarro world this be a normal state of affairs?

Total mortgage debt outstanding in 1996, before the epic Wall Street produced housing bubble, was $4.7 billion. Today, even after the transfer of almost $1 trillion of bad debt to the balance sheet of the American taxpayer, the amount of mortgage debt is an astounding $13.1 trillion. Despite home values rising since 1996, there are 20% of all households still in a negative equity position. Total household real estate equity was 60% in 1996, plunged below 40% in 2009, and has only slightly rebounded to 47% today because Wall Street dumped the bad mortgages on the backs of the American taxpayer. Is it normal for mortgage debt to triple and home equity to plunge in a rationally functioning world? Is it normal when 25% of all existing home sales are distressed sales and another 30% are sales to Wall Street hedge funds like Blackrock?

In 1996 there were 200 million working age Americans, with 134 million (67%) in the labor force, 127 million (63.5%) employed, and 66 million (33%) not in the labor force. Today there are 245 million working age Americans, with 155 million (63%) in the labor force, 143 million (58%) employed, and 90 million (37%) supposedly not in the labor force. The number of working age Americans has increased by 22.5%, while the number of those employed has advanced by only 12.5%. The population to employment ratio has reached a three decade low as millions have given up, been lured into college by cheap plentiful government debt, or developed a mysterious ailment that has gotten them into the SSDI program. Is it normal for millions of Americans to leave the labor force when the economy is supposedly recovering?

In 1996 there were 25.5 million Americans on food stamps, or 9.6% of the population, costing $24 billion per year. Today there are 47.8 million Americans on food stamps, or 15% of the population, costing $75 billion per year. Historically, the number of people in this program would rise during recessions and recede when the economy recovered, just as a safety net program should function. According to our government keepers the economy has been in recovery since late 2009. The number of people entering the food stamp program has gone up by 7 million since the recession officially ended. This is not normal. Either the government is lying about the recession or they are screwing the taxpayer by encouraging constituents to enter the program in an effort to gain votes. Which is it?

The price of oil averaged $20 per barrel in 1996 and it cost you $1.20 per gallon to fill your tank. Oil averaged $85 per barrel in 2012 and currently hovers around $90 per barrel. Most Americans are now paying between $3.50 and $4.00 per gallon to fill their tanks. This result seems abnormal considering the propaganda machine is proclaiming we are on the verge of energy independence. After two Middle East wars, 6,700 dead American soldiers, 50,000 wounded American soldiers, and $1.5 trillion of national wealth wasted, this is all we get – a tripling in gas prices and creation of thousands of new terrorists?

You have to have a really bad case of normalcy bias to be able to convince yourself that everything that has happened since 1996 is normal. Every fact supports the reality that we’ve entered a period of extreme abnormality and our response as a nation thus far has insured that a disaster of even far greater magnitude is just over the horizon. Anyone with an ounce of common sense realizes the social mood is deteriorating rapidly. We are in the midst of a Crisis period that will result in earth shattering change, but the masses want things to go back to normal and don’t want to face the facts. The cognitive dissonance created by reality versus their wishes will resolve itself when the next financial collapse makes 2008 look like a walk in the park. But, until then most will just stick their heads in the sand and hope for the best.

Loving Your Servitude

“Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.” – Ron Paul

The most disgraceful example of abnormality that has infected our culture has been the cowardice and docile acquiescence of the citizenry in allowing an ever expanding police state to shred the U.S. Constitution, strip us of our freedoms, and restrict our liberties. Our keepers have not let any crisis go to waste in the last seventeen years. They have also taken advantage of the willful ignorance, childish immaturity, extreme gullibility, historical cluelessness, financial illiteracy and techno-narcissism of the populace to reverse practical legislation and prey upon irrational fears to strip the people of their constitutionally guaranteed liberties and freedoms. If you had told someone in 1996 the security measures, laws, and police agencies that would exist in 2013, they would have laughed you out of the room. Every crisis, whether government created or just convenient to their agenda, has been utilized by the oligarchs to expand the police state and benefit the crony capitalists that profit from its expansion. The character of the American people has been found wanting as they obediently cower and beg for protection from unseen evil doers. The propagandist corporate media reinforces their fears and instructs them to submissively tremble and implore the government to do more. The cosmic obliviousness and limitless sense of complacency of the general population with regards to a blatantly obvious coup by a small cadre of sociopathic financial elite and their army of bureaucrats, lackeys and jackboots is a wonder to behold.

The 1929 stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression was primarily the result of excessively loose Federal Reserve monetary policy during the Roaring 20’s and the unrestrained fraud perpetrated by the Wall Street banks. The 1933 Glass-Steagall Act was a practical 38 page law which kept Wall Street from ravenously raping its customers and the American people for almost seven decades. The Wall Street elite and their bought off political hacks in both parties repealed this law in 1999, while simultaneously squashing any effort to regulate the financial derivatives market. The day trading American public didn’t even look up from their computer screens. Over the next nine years Wall Street went on a fraudulent feeding frenzy rampage which brought the country to its knees and then held the American taxpayer at gunpoint to bail them out. The Federal Reserve arranged rescue of LTCM in 1998 gave the all clear to Wall Street that any risk was acceptable, since the Fed would always bail them out. Just as they did in the 1920’s, the Federal Reserve set the table for financial disaster with excessively low interest rates and non-existent regulatory oversight.

The downward spiral of our empire towards an Orwellian/Huxley merged dystopian nightmare accelerated after the 9/11 attacks. Within one month those looking to exert hegemony over all domestic malcontents had passed the 366 page, 58,000 words Patriot Act. Did the terrified masses ask how such a comprehensive destruction of our liberties could be written in under one month? It is apparent to anyone with critical thinking skills that the enemy within had this bill written, waiting for the ideal opportunity to implement this unprecedented expansion of federal police power. Electronic surveillance of our emails, phone calls and voice mails, along with warrantless wiretaps, and general loss of civil liberties was passed without question under the guise of protecting us. Next was the invasion of a foreign country based upon lies, propaganda and misinformation without a declaration of war, as required by the Constitution. Our government began torturing suspects in secret foreign prisons. The shallow, self-centered, narcissistic, Facebook fanatic populace has barely looked up from texting on their iPhones to notice that we have been at war in the Middle East for eleven years, because it hasn’t interfered with their weekly viewing of Honey Boo Boo, Dancing With the Stars, or Jersey Shore. They occasionally leave their homes to wave a flag and chant “USA, USA, USA”, as directed by the media, when a terrorist like Bin Laden or Boston bomber is offed by our security services, but for the most part they can live their superficial vacuous lives of triviality unscathed by war.

The creation of the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security ushered in a further encroachment of our everyday freedoms. They attempted to keep the masses frightened through a ridiculous color coded fear index. Little old ladies, people in wheelchairs and little children are subject to molestation by lowlife TSA perverts. Military units conduct “training exercises” in cities across the country to desensitize the sheep-like masses, who fail to acknowledge that the U.S. military cannot constitutionally be used domestically. DHS considers military veterans, Ron Paul supporters, and Christians as potential enemies of the state. The use of predator drones to murder suspected adversaries in foreign countries, while killing innocent men, women and children (also known as collateral damage), has just been a prelude to the domestic surveillance and eventually extermination of dissidents and nonconformists here in the U.S. We are already becoming a 1984 CCTV controlled nation. DHS has been rapidly militarizing local police forces in cities and towns to supplement their jackbooted thugs. Obama’s executive orders have given him the ability to take control of industry. He can imprison citizens without charges for as long as he deems necessary. Attempts to control gun ownership and shutdown the internet is a prologue to further government domination and supremacy over our lives when the wheels come off this unsustainable bus.

The last week has provided a multitude of revelations about our government and the people of this country. The billions “invested” in our police state, along with warnings from a foreign government, and suspicious travel patterns were not enough for our beloved protectors to stop the Boston Marathon bombing. After stumbling upon these amateur terrorists by accident, the 2nd responders, with their Iraq war level firepower, managed to slaughter one of the perpetrators, but somehow allowed a wounded teenager to escape on foot and elude 10,000 donut eaters for almost 24 hours. The horde of heavily armed, testosterone fueled thugs proceeded to bully and intimidate the citizens of Watertown by illegal searches of homes and treating innocent people like criminals. The government completely shut down the 10th largest metropolitan area in the country for an entire day looking for a wounded 19 year old. The people of Boston obeyed their zoo keepers and obediently cowered in their cages.

The entire episode was an epic fail. The gang that couldn’t shoot straight needed an old man to find the bomber in his backyard boat. The people of Boston exhibited the passivity and subservience demanded by their government. Since the capture of the remaining terrorist, the shallow exhibitions of national pride at athletic events and smarmy displays of honoring the police state apparatchiks who screwed up – allowing the attack to occur and looking like the keystone cops during the pursuit of the suspects, has revealed a fatal defect in our civil character. We are living in a profoundly abnormal society, with millions of medicated mindless zombies controlled by a vast propaganda machine, who seemingly enjoy having their liberties taken away. Most have willingly learned to love their servitude. For those who haven’t learned, the boot of our vast security state will just stomp on their face forever. We’re realizing the worst dystopian nightmares of Orwell and Huxley simultaneously. This abnormalcy bias will dissipate over the next ten to fifteen years in torrent of financial collapse, war, bloodshed, and retribution. Sticking your head in the sand will not make reality go away. The existing social, political, and financial order will be swept away. What it is replaced by is up to us. Will this be the final chapter or new chapter in the history of this nation? The choice is ours.

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.– George Orwell

“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution” –Aldous Huxley, 1961

Absolutely nothing the government does is dependent upon the merit behind the idea, the people who might benefit, or the end result on society. What gets done is all about ruling by divide and conquer, and, appealing to certain classes of voters in order to make a majority-constituency.

Obama won re-election appealing to women, blacks, and homosexuals. That is his majority-constituency.

And now that Obama again sits in the Oval office, he has an agenda that clearly has not been vetted by either debate or the voting process. The Obama agenda does not relate to anything other than some strange and secret conception given to Barack Obama.

The same is essentially true about every bureaucratic organization in the country. There is no logical rhyme nor reason to why the people in authority -are- the people in authority. They get there on the weight of their boldness, offensiveness, their willingness to lie, and their brash conduct. They get there, solely to promote their own stardom, and their own vision of that stardom.

They get there and provide literally no public service whatsoever.

Under our system of governance, the public weal is the furthest thing from the minds of our leaders. Our leaders generally speak of some obscure vision of a future that is different, for the sake of that difference alone. Obama wants to tax carbon, open our borders to unfettered immigration and make guns illegal.

Who voted for any of that? And of those few who did vote for some part of it, why?

Abnormalcy bias? No. The reason is because, they are simply uneducated political -enthusiasts-. Their silly enthusiasm is destroying the future through decade upon decade of blindly ambling toward an ever more dangerous future.

Is that any way to head into the future? No. All we will learn from the feckless experience is that reality is infinitely complex. Being so, no one should boast of progress in the outcome of this reckless behavior.

nveric

Find solutions, they’re there.

Tonto

You are grotesquely overestimating the competence inherent to human ingenuity. Humans are ingenious, granted.

That being said, we should all note, the product of our ingenious nature is clearly poisonous, and will likely be -suicidal- over the long run. Trammeling onward, again into the future looking for solutions, is no longer a viable methodology -when our best reasoned purpose has become simply -to seek what is sustainable-.

In other words, seeking a sustainable paradigm disallows seeking something new. For it has all too obviously become true by endless example, that -the pursuit of something new- lacks any efficacy moving forward. Relying on our ingenious nature will only produce more dangerous pipe-dreams.

The only solution is to shut down as many of the mistaken (previously new) notions of the past that can be shut down. The only examples of sustainability humanity has, all exist in the distant past. We can work toward that goal, or simply wait until it is thrust upon by some quick, and, -out-of-control- turn of events.

I prefer the former to the latter. Are we all lemmings? Do we have any free will?

nveric

Calls of returning to some sort of past must not hinder our necessity
for technology. This is what humans do. They create technology, and
because this marks us as human, if we abandon technology, we’ll return
to a proto-human state.

Returning to a past level of technology is criminal. And, I’m quite serious when I say I’ll fight those who want that. There’s a third, fourth, and fifth option, but most likely not many can see them or want to.

Our two-option system is what restrains thinking. I’m sorry my friend, you’re limiting yourself. Seeing two options is not good enough, and I know YOU can do better.

“Relying on our ingenious nature will only produce more dangerous pipe-dreams.”

Again, if using the past two option system, then yes YOU are right.

“The only examples of sustainability humanity has, all exist in the distant past.”

Yes, you’re right, with the key word of “examples.”

I don’t have the answers, yet. A greater problem today is still the childish natures of too many people. They seem to whine and whimper and get elected to government.

Tonto

You miss the most important bit of knowledge anyone can attain.

Reality is infinitely complex. It is infinitely complex in an infinitely manifold way.

You say, “I don’t have the answers, yet. […]”

The answer is that, neither you nor anyone else will ever have the answers you seek. You simply are looking in the wrong place.

Technology, the march technology, that which used to be called science, as if it were some benevolent gift of sentience, has turned into a nightmare. If Fukushima was not enough, then when will you give it up? What will take?

Because, no matter how high you place the bar -where you are forced to turn away from science -once and for all- science will reach it.

Science, as a gift to mankind, is a total fraud.

nveric

So, is there some reversion level you have in mind ? A past level of development ?

Your mentioning of ‘science’ as something to turn away from is unfounded and not explained enough. Science explains. Technology is what is made.

Humans are locked in with technology as it defines what humans are. Using tools is virtually an exclusive human trait. Few others use tools. Chimps and sea otters are 2 others which use tools, with the sea otter not creating their tool.

You are arguing the use of knowledge as the problem which is correct, but that’s the fault of people, not the knowledge itself. You seem to want people to be ignorant or be not knowing. If so, then that is as wrong as those misusing technology.

We have these abilities for some reason other than regular existence or survival. I’m not suggesting humans are a ‘divine’ creation. But, we have these abilities none other have, such as leaving the planet.

ColdWarBaby

What you’re talking about is neither science nor technology. It’s the capitalist abuse and exploitation for “profit” of brilliance and creativity.

There are the thinkers, the makers and the parasitic takers.

Takers are parasites that stand upon the shoulders of great Thinkers, holding them under heel with the false “wealth” of commodified “money” and stealing their ideas that they may “profit” of them.

This they accomplish by standing upon the backs of productive Makers, who are begrudgingly given the minimum possible reward for their labour, which actually produces the goods and services conceived by the Thinkers.

Takers are those who, even as their machinations utterly destroy the biosphere that allows them to exist, seek further means to “profit” from that very destruction.

Unlimited growth for its own sake is the modus operandi of a cancer, not a rational being.

Profit and Benefit are very different concepts.

Profit results from transactions in which one party gets more out than they put in. This, in accordance with the laws of physics, results in loss to another party.

This is not mutually beneficial. It is non-symbiotic, a parasite/victim, predator/prey relationship. It enhances the benefit to the Taker while minimising any unavoidable benefit to others.

Taking profit attempts to defy the laws of physics. It creates imbalance, destroys equilibrium and is an unsustainable practice, which is why it has led to the collapse of many societies and halted human evolution.

Mutually beneficial transactions help maintain the balance and equilibrium of Life, which promotes natural progress through evolution while enhancing sustainability.

An even exchange is symbiotic and brings benefit to both parties. This involves no “taking“.

“Capital”, like “profit”, is an invention of those who seek dominance over others. It temporarily benefits only the few who control it, to the ultimate detriment of all others and, eventually, even to themselves.

The Taker is the “middle man”; a burden upon society and an impediment to human evolution. He takes unearned wealth from the creativity of Thinkers
and the labour of Makers while contributing nothing to the general welfare.

In order to achieve a truly open and civil society, a genuine civilisation, it is necessary to disempower and isolate the Takers, abandon the fallacy of “competition” as the source of progress and establish direct, cooperative interaction between Thinkers and Makers.

“Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”Abraham Lincoln, Annual message to Congress, December 3, 1861.

Small
wonder he was murdered.

Tonto

Both of you are expressing the last vestige of an epistemological viewpoint developed and wholly embraced during the Enlightenment. That viewpoint denies the divinity of man as a being, and reclaims the absurdity in pronouncing the divinity of man the scientist. We are not gods.

The mechanical universe of Descartes is a fraud, for no matter how far down scientists have looked, still there is no explanation that says anything different from what was previously known, e.g., most of creation is empty space. By the scientific observers’ tally most of the Universe is empty space, most of the space between the Galaxies is empty space, most of the space within our solar system is empty space, most of the space between molecules is empty space, most of the space between atoms is empty space, most of the space inside the atoms is empty space, and most of the space between sub-atomic particles -is also but empty space. In fact, there has been nothing concrete discovered in the Universe by science, nothing but more empty space. How does that allow for any explanations?

The infinitely manifold, infinitely complex nature of reality is not explained by the science of mankind. On this destructive route, it is no more likely that we will conquer the infinitely manifold nature of reality than the chimps, otters and magpies might on theirs. The empirical search is a dead end.

Science has simply given mankind limited knowledge with which he cannot coexist. Scientific knowledge is destroying mankind from gender-bending chemical compounds, to the outright poisons of Fukushima. No more than a very few men are not going to leave this planet, and then for nothing more than a thrill ride. Everyone is staying right here. Get used to it. The scientific futurists are all wrong. There is no scientific future. It’s over. Look around.

Some thought they had discovered the Holy Grail in the knowledge being uncovered by science. But science only randomly meanders through the infinitely complex reality that surrounds us. Science uncovers very little and at the same time it obscures infinitely more. Look around for the proof of that.

The only real human truth is only found in Categorical Knowledge.

What is Categorical Knowledge? It is a new knowledge set that is based on absolute morality. Why, absolute morality? Because absolute morality is something we can understand as human beings.

Understand this. The moral imperative of life is to live a life that detracts not at all from the lives available to those who will follow us into this world.

That moral statement is categorically true. It is an absolutely true guidepost. In short it says, do not screw up the future. Science has been amply demonstrated to screw up the future. We are living in that future. Look around.

ColdWarBaby

A very interesting philosophy. You’ve used quite a few words but, as far as I can see, haven’t said all that much.

Please tell us, specifically, what path we are to follow here, on the ground, in the real day to day world. What actual, specific actions are we to take to live in absolute morality? I’m not talking about making broad and vague philosophical statements. How should we be living?

Should we tear down all our dwellings and live as nomads again? There are many pragmatic reasons why this might not be a bad idea. There is strong scientific evidence that we began our descent into our present predicament with the neolithic revolution.

Should we forsake all forms of scientific endeavour and progress and revert to a completely “natural” way of Life? Should we abandon all cities and large metropolitan areas and return to living in small villages or tribes?

What, exactly, is your blueprint for the continued survival and improvement of the human species?

It sounds, to me, as if you’re espousing some form of theocracy without specifying which particular “god” we should worship. Or perhaps that we should return to living as tribal gatherer/hunters and reclaim a closer relationship with the natural world.

If you’re advocating the first, then I think this discussion is over. If it’s the second you’re suggesting then the idea has some merit if not taken too literally. I think it’s a matter of balance and that science can help humanity be more in tune with Gaia rather than less.

As to the “empty” space, have you heard of dark matter and dark energy? That’s what’s great about science, it never stops learning and asking questions. It may never find all the answers but asking those questions is a lot of what being human is about.

Tonto

ColdWarBaby says, “It sounds, to me, as if you’re espousing some form of theocracy without specifying which particular “god” we should worship.”

Black and white Richard Dawkins atheists are a comical breed. They adamantly condemn religion and theocracy of every sort. And yet, they are unaware how they worship with heads deeply bowed in reverence at the alter of science. My own atheism predates Richard Dawkins by several decades. My own study ignores him as wholly insignificant.

Unlike Dawkins relatively immature atheism, I do not worship science. Dawkins (hopefully transitive) appeal is the promise he holds out, that science can cure all humanity’s ills. That is a laughable claim. Dawkins is three-hundred years out of sync with modern notions concerning truth. Science is known now to be the source of -all- humanity’s ills.

ColdWarBaby asks, “Should we tear down all our dwellings and live as nomads again?”

Of course humanity cannot go backward into our past, and live as we once did. We can however, recognize and gear our pragmatic moves noting, that such a direction will provide the greatest return on our intellectual investment at this juncture. In other words, we can stop espousing science as a gift. Science is poison. The “scientific genius” is a miscreant that needs to be dealt with.

One also has to recognize, it is very difficult to plot a course in an infinitely complex sea. We really have no way of knowing the later results of any of the course corrections we might plot today. The infinite complexity of reality, ensures this about our competency in the area of planning and prognostication. The mountains are too high. And there are too many of them to see what is on the other side.

What I am saying is, logically, we have to look at the wrong answers more carefully, to discover from whence these arise. The wrong answers are far more important to understand than anyone’s common claim about having found some new right answer. Why? Because notions of genius and what might be the “right” answer, are all faulty.

Why are these faulty? Because our language is incapable -for the most part- of aiding us in our search for, or, even simply conveying the truth.

But we can know, -what is not true-. The untruth is a vast sea of infinite complexity far greater than the truth. Science is not true, at least not in any human sense.

What truth is there to finding out something that is going to destroy everyone? There certainly is no human truth to science in that sense. Science is its knowledge sets, and what ends up being done with those knowledge sets -due to our human nature-.

Human truth is found in Categorical Knowledge.

Categorical Knowledge has always been extent. But its time is just now coming to the fore. Categorical Knowledge is about holistic sustainability. The time of science and scientific invention -is over-, unless these scientists are going to ignore logic and they really do want to destroy the world.

Why is the time of science over? Because, endlessly seeking and relying on scientific solutions -only- creates more scientific knowledge sets that are species-suicide ruinous in the hands of humanity.

And even if scientists do want to destroy the world, we cannot let them. To let scientists destroy the world would -of course- be immoral.

ColdWarBaby

Once again you’ve written many words but said nothing of substance, other than confirming your virulent hatred of science and scientists.

Holistic sustainability sounds promising. Exactly how is this to be accomplished? I think a good place to start would be a resource based economy, which would do away with money and the profit motive entirely.

Did you mean, “Categorical knowledge has always been extant”?

Tonto

You are merely being tediously rhetorical.

You say, “Holistic sustainability sounds promising. Exactly how is this to be accomplished? I think a good place to start would be a resource based economy, which would do away with money and the profit motive entirely.”

Your penchant for talking about the economy is misplaced.

I am asking you to start thinking about knowledge sets. And to start thinking about the knowledge set that will best define the truth as it can be observed, all so that, the future can be foreseen, and we might express some free will, by abandoning those knowledge sets and ideas that have brought us to the societal precipice.

This societal crack-up we are experiencing is not merely about the economy, money or the profit motive. This collapse is about the failure of the concentration of our individual intellectual efforts. Your common failure is to view the world as economic (which is just another kind of scientific analysis).

Our problems are not merely economic or scientific. Fukushima is not an economic problem. Democracy is not a scientific problem.

The world is not economic. And neither is the world scientific. The world is infinitely complex and the world is unforgiving and categorical.

Excuse me for trying to come to some understanding of your abstruse maundering.

For someone who seems to think they have exclusive access to some cosmic Truth you seem oddly reluctant to explain it in any rational or relevant manner.

I come seeking common ground and you respond with hubris.

As you say, enough.

nveric

Tonto sees what he sees, and it’s as valid as any other person. Not everyone can put to words their perceptions, and most likely no one can fully describe every thought, because the words don’t exist.

There’s 7 billion+ ways to define society or the way to live with no universal way to explain them all. See my post above.

nveric

Yes, we are incapable of knowing everything. Science explains what it can, and it does so by having other people confirm what’s been discovered. There is no certainty in Science or anything else. Religion has not all the answers.

Life lives as best it can, because it wants to live, it must live.

I must apologize to you. You’re right about the way to live – for yourself, and for each person on the planet, there’s that many ways to live.

Admitting there’s the potential for each person to define their own type of society, what will 7 billion+ agree to do in resolving their differences?

Our current systems, based on separate countries made up of from several to many sub-units, are far from acceptable to all within those divisions.

So, how can the People of the Earth accommodate each to their own system? Of course 7 billion separate systems seem too many to have, when many would compromise, thus leading to less than 7 billion systems, but still how can these many ways accommodate each other without conflicts?

The fewer number of systems will be easier to manage, but it will force the unwilling to accept the unacceptable, something we already have. Will humans ever solve their varying interests without conflict or force?

We need

Bonanno Loans

JimQ’s formulaic blather always includes some dig at an imaginary mass of “po’ folk” who getting over on the “taxpayers”, he never bothers to mention the corporate bottom lines that are entirely dependant on sucking from the Fed’s tit. Next up is the obligatory gold standard nonsense, the revisionist “that’s when it all went wrong”. Try to be a better writer, take 10x the amount of mescaline Huxley experimented with, and see if that helps.

ColdWarBaby

While what you say is correct, there is still a lot of truth to be found in the article. It’s not always necessary to throw out the baby with the bathwater. When dealing with nearly all pundits, it’s usually necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Washington76

Dr. Jim Garrow is a renowned author and whistleblower who has been nominated for a Nobel peace prize for his humanitarian work. He is the author of The Pink Pagoda: One Man’s Quest to End Gendercide in China.

He has spent over $25 million over the past sixteen years rescuing an estimated 40,000 baby Chinese girls from near-certain death under China’s one-child-per-couple policy by facilitating international adoptions. He is the founder and executive director of the Bethune Institute’s Pink Pagoda schools, private English-immersion schools for Chinese children. Today he runs 168 schools with nearly 6,300 employees.

Dr Garrow was recently contacted by a high ranking military official who implored him to reveal the truth about a “litmus test” that is being proposed by the Obama administration to the military asking the question “will you shoot Americans if they won’t give you their guns?”

It looks to me like the oligarchy has spent the last 15 years preparing for the ultimate bubble: Peak People. Peak people will occur when the global population exceeds the energy available to feed them.

nveric

The Sun provides more than we could ever dream of using.

ColdWarBaby

While there is quite a bit of valid and useful information here, it somehow ends up suggesting, to me at least, that the author still believes that “capitalism” is a viable system and that things actually can be restored to “normal”.

IMHO that “belief” is irrational.

“The country will not return to normalcy in our lifetimes.”

And nor should it, ever, given that the perceived and accepted “normal” is the problem, not the solution.

“A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank.”

A system of capitalism also presumes endless growth and profit within a closed system, a presumption that is utterly delusional and defies the laws of physics.

And, by the way, there is no money other than “fiat”. Money is not and never was a commodity. It is an invention of the human mind, not a vital natural resource, nothing more than a receipt for goods or services, a tally system.

“…not credit creation by a central bank.”

The central bank practices usury; it does not create credit it creates debt.

“…I come to the inescapable conclusion that our country and world are headed into the abyss.”

This is an accurate assessment in my opinion.

“The Federal government has expanded their piece of the GDP pie by 130% since 1996, with the
Department of War accounting for the bulk of the increase.”

“Will this be the final chapter or new chapter in the history of this nation?”

Actually, it may be the final chapter in history, period. When nobody is left to keep an historic record, is history still being made?

There is no recourse for the general population to be found within the “system”. There is no government in america with which to seek redress of grievances. There are no laws to be invoked to stop the criminal psychopaths who now control virtually all Earth’s vital resources. The “laws” now in force were written by them, for them.

We have come to the moment when the ruling class is about ready to stop pretending they are something other than the ruling class. The pretense of “democracy” and “freedom” will soon be dropped
completely. The effort to disguise the reality of the totalitarian plutocracy will end and america will become a bona fide third world country.

The pathocracy is becoming so confident of success that they are allowing the charade of civil society to dissolve. Their contempt for the People is becoming more evident every day and their true intent more clear.

The control of america and, in fact, of most nations of the world, has been completely surrendered to the money power.

There is no “american empire”. There is the global empire of the international banking cartel. The united states of america is simply the “superpower” du jour, now an unmitigated rogue state, being used as both the sharp end of the stick, to back everyone into a corner, and a blunt instrument to beat them into submission.

The “new world order”, which most people apparently consider just another wacko “conspiracy theory”, seems to be shaping up quite nicely.

The once “advanced”, sovereign nations of Earth are being steadily reduced to “third world” status.

The rapidly accelerating effects of global warming will soon render much of the planet increasingly hostile to human habitation.

Over the next few decades, I think many major cities and population centers will begin to experience massive infrastructure failures. These collapsed essential systems will not be repaired or replaced and the cities will be left to rot. The general populations will be thrust into increasing poverty and chaos.

The ruling class will retire to select locations, walled fortress cities, guarded by privatised armies and served by private providers. From these castellated control centers they will administer a single world government and a single all electronic global currency and economy, all of which will be enforced and protected by a single privatised world military.

Earth will become a third world planet.

Just my opinion.

nveric

I’ll second that.

Anymore?

ColdWarBaby

I’ll let you know when the book comes out!

nveric

Did you change anything in your original post?

ColdWarBaby

Much of this comment is the same as I’ve posted elsewhere when it’s relevant. You’ve taken me to task for it at Common Dreams.

Since it says what I’m trying to convey I see no reason to keep retyping the same comment repeatedly. It’s part of a journal I keep on my hard drive. I use things from the journal all the time with additions or edits when necessary.

I’ve been campaigning for change for years. I tried to foment a general strike during the bush years. I’ve written, phoned, faxed and emailed practically the entire congress and two presidents. I’ve created petitions, I’ve signed petitions, I marched and carried signs during the vietnam era and the 911 era.

I’m sick of screaming into a vacuum of ignorance and complacency.

Now I’ve got a father of 90 to take care of. When I can find the time I try to use what I’ve learned over the years to raise awareness.

omeone commented at Guy Mc some time ago and I was so taken by what they said that I saved it in my journal.

There is nothing more to say then it says: “They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the
word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society.”, thanks for posting the news.

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